Bobby Sands: 66 Days

I had the pleasure of seeing this film at a screening in London. It is a brilliant and important film. It is interesting to see a period you remember as history- it is and that's what happens when you get old! Like all good documentaries, the basis of it is the quality of research and contributors. I think it is important that young people see it too, to get a sense of what was going on in Ireland and Britain then. As with any film about the troubles, it is bound to stir up deep feelings and, so far as i can see, it is critisised for being too sympathetic to the hunger strikers and being too anti them by different people, as proof of that. I felt though that this was a genuine attempt to explain the hunger strike within its context and it succeeded. I remember, living in London at the time, the effect the IRA had, in terms of bombs, the constant news from Northern Ireland on the TV news and the effect the hunger strikers had- it was unsettling, the ultimate proof that nothing would stand between these people from their objective, however crazy starving yourself to death seems to most of us.